Meanwhile, a hideous scene was enacted at the ruined village of the Illinois. Their savage foes, balked of a living prey, wreaked their fury on the dead. They dug up the graves; they threw down the scaffolds. Some of the bodies they burned; some they threw to the dogs; some, it is affirmed, they ate. [Footnote: "Cependant les Iroquois, aussitot apres le depart du Sr. de Tonty, exercerent leur rage sur les corps morts des Ilinois, qu'ils deterrerent ou abbatterent de dessus les echafauds ou les Ilinois les laissent longtemps exposes avant que de les mettre en terre. Ils en brulerent la plus grande partie, ils en mangerent meme quelques uns, et jetterent le reste aux chiens. Ils planterent les tetes de ces cadavres a demi decharnes sur des pieux," etc.--_Relation des Decouvertes_, MS.] Placing the skulls on stakes as trophies, they turned to pursue the Illinois, who, when the French withdrew, had abandoned their asylum and retreated down the river. The Iroquois, still, it seems, in awe of them, followed them along the opposite bank, each night encamping face to face with them; and thus the adverse bands moved slowly southward, till they were near the mouth of the river. Hitherto, the compact array of the Illinois had held their enemies in check; but now, suffering from hunger, and lulled into security by the assurances of the Iroquois that their object was not to destroy them, but only to drive them from the country, they rashly separated into their several tribes. Some descended the Mississippi; some, more prudent, crossed to the western side. One of their principal tribes, the Tamaroas, more credulous than the rest, had the fatuity to remain near the mouth of the Illinois, where they were speedily assailed by all the force of the Iroquois. The men fled, and very few of them were killed; but the women and children were captured to the number, it is said, of seven hundred. [Footnote: _Relation des Decouvertes_, MS. Frontenac to the King, N.Y. _Col. Docs_., ix. 147. A memoir of Duchesneau makes the number twelve hundred.] Then followed that scene of torture, of which, some two weeks later, La Salle saw the revolting traces. [Footnote: "Ils [les Illinois] trouverent dans leur campement des carcasses de leurs enfans que ces anthropophages avoient mangez, ne voulant meme d'autre nourriture que la chair de ces infortunez."--La Potherie, ii. 145, 146. Compare _note_, _ante_, p. 196.] Sated, at length, with horrors, the conquerors withdrew, leading with them a host of captives, and exulting in their triumphs over women, children, and the dead.